美丽之妇

　　1858年，在博洛尼亚的犹太区，教皇的士兵闯入了莫塔拉家，按照枢机主教的命令，他们要抢走莫塔拉家的七岁儿子埃德加罗。这个孩子在婴儿时期被保姆秘密洗礼，教皇法律是不容置疑的：他必须接受天主教教育。莫塔拉的父母心痛万分，他们将不惜一切代价取回自己的儿子。在国际犹太社区和舆论 的支持下，莫塔拉家的斗争很快就带上了政治色彩。但是，教会和教皇不会同意归还这个孩子，因为这有助于巩固越来越动摇的权力……

　　奥赛罗（谢尔盖·邦达尔丘克 Sergei Bondarchuk 饰）是骁勇善战的大将军，元老的女儿苔丝狄蒙娜（伊琳娜·斯科布采娃 Irina Skobtseva 饰）爱上了他，但因为奥赛罗是一名黑人，所以两人的婚事遭到了元老的反对。不愿意就此放弃这段感情的两人决定私定终身，这个秘密被一直嫉妒奥赛罗的旗官伊阿古（安德烈·波波夫 Andrei Popov 饰）给暗中偷听到了，于是伊阿古决定破坏这段姻缘。哪知道伊阿古的捣乱反而促成了这段婚事。　　伊阿古并没有善罢甘休，奥戴罗和苔丝狄蒙娜结婚之后，伊阿古通过伪造定情信物的手段开始挑拨这对夫妻之间的感情。占有欲极强的奥赛罗很快就走进了伊阿古设置的圈套之中。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　Locked in her flat for several years, a reclusive young woman stumbles upon a mysterious web community. According to an urban myth, the Suicide Club grants death to those wishing for it. Unless these "cyber suicides" are actually murders.